First 'Star Trek' USS Enterprise Model Returned After Going Missing for Nearly 50 Years

Star Trek fans have been boldly going where no man has gone before since the late 1960s. The original Star Trek series kicked off a global phenomenon and cultivated a strong legacy that remains alive to this day. One iconic part of the original series, however, was believed to have been lost to history—until now.

The opening credits and pilot episode of the original series featured a model of the USS Enterprise spaceship, but the model disappeared sometime in the '70s and was seemingly gone forever. Last fall, the item seemingly appeared on eBay, and now, after being authenticated by Heritage Auctions, the long-lost model has finally come home to Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, son of creator Gene Roddenberry who died in 1991.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves," Roddenberry told The Associated Press. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere."

Heritage Auctions' executive vice president Joe Maddalena said the people who reached out to them found the model in a storage unit and that he "instantly knew that it was the real thing" when he saw it in person. He explained that the model disappeared in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry lent it to the makers of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which came out in 1979.

Maddalena thinks the model would fetch more than $1 million at auction but is truly "priceless."

"It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is," he said. “It is truly a cultural icon."

The disappearance baffled the Roddenberry family for decades.

"No one knew what happened to it," Rod confessed. "I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created."

"This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story," he added.

He remembered seeing it as a child and years later was even the subject of a rumor that he destroyed it when he was a kid by throwing it into a pool. "Finally I’m vindicated after all these years," he laughed.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to see a bigger model of the ship, you can see an 11-foot version featured in the series' episodes on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.